DID YOU KNOW?
The Pentagon
Paid to Create
Fake News About
Al-Qaeda for
Iraqis
Concern over Russian involvement in promot-
ing fake news during the 2016 election is a jus-
tifi ed hot topic in the news. But what about our
own involvement in similar operations? In October 2016,
Crofton Black and Abigail Fielding-Smith reported for
the Bureau of Investigative Journalism on one such very
expensive—and questionable—operation.
The Pentagon paid a British PR firm, Bell Pottinger,
more than $660 million to run a top-secret propaganda
program in Iraq from at least 2006 to December 2011. The
work consisted of three types of products: TV commer-
cials portraying al-Qaeda in a negative light, news items
intended to look like Arabic TV, and—most disturbing—
fake al-Qaeda propaganda fi lms.
“ THE
M I L I T A R Y D I D N ’ T H A V E T H E
IN - HOUSE EXPERTISE AND WAS OPERATING
I N A L E G A L ‘ G R A Y A R E A . ’”
A former Bell Pottinger video editor, Martin Wells, told
the bureau that he was given precise instructions for pro-
duction of fake al-Qaeda fi lms, and that the fi rm’s output
was approved by former Gen. David Petraeus—command-
er of the coalition forces in Iraq—and on occasion by the
White House. They reported that the United States used
contractors because “the military didn’t have the in-house
expertise and was operating in a legal ‘gray area.’”
Documents show Bell Pottinger employed as many
as 300 British and Iraqi staff at one point, and its media
operations in Iraq cost more than $100 million a year on
average. It’s remarkable that an operation on this scale has
been totally ignored in the midst of so much focus on “fake
news” here in the U.S.
CONT. on page 16
Willamette Week OCTOBER 11, 2017 wweek.com
15